Making everyone happy is impossible. Pissing them off is a piece of cake. I like cake.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Iain Dale says "all your business are belong to the state"

Iain Dale is complaining about Chris Grayling's contention that B&B owners—though not hotel owners—should be free to reject gay couples (even though Grayling voted for the legislation that prohibits this. A Tory MP who is a massive hypocrite—who'da thunk it?).

Now, Iain can fight the corner of his own little vested interest all he likes—and, let's face it, he's never pretended to be a libertarian—but he calls this so wrong that it's worth giving his wee face a little slapping.

I fundamentally disagree with him on the main issue. This is not about property rights. If you open your house to paying guests, it is no longer just your house.

BOOM! Wrong! This is why libertarians fundamentally disagree with the smoking ban, whether they be smokers or not: because a pub is, in fact, a private business.

You are running a business, just the same as anyone else, and you should be subject to the same laws as anyone else.

Sure. But maybe—just maybe—businesses should not be bound by these laws either. Ever considered that, Iain?

If you do not wish gay people, black people, Jews or anyone else in your house, don't open it to the public. Simple as that. No one would accept a shopowner refusing to serve a particular type of person, would they?

No, Iain. And that's why public opinion is rather more important than the law. These days, a shop that displayed a sign saying "no blacks, no poofs and no Etonians" would be boycotted by anyone who isn't a colossal bigot. Now, it might be that a large proportion of the British public are bigots, but...

... perhaps you should leave the decision to individuals, rather than slapping blanket laws of people to force them to live by your personal morals.

Now, to a dedicated statist like Iain Dale this is, of course, unconscionable. The state should force private businesses to behave like Iain wants them to—in short, that private businesses should belong to the state (as long, of course, as that state is run by the party that Iain hero-worships).

Get a grip, Iain: businesses are private entities, just as individuals are. In fact, they are recognised as private individuals in the law that you are suddenly so fond of.

And so, once again, Iain Dale shows himself to be an oppressor of individuals' rights, and a statist of the most disgusting type—a man who claims that he believes in personal freedom, except when your morals are opposed to his. In which case, of course, he will use violence to ensure that—at least outwardly—you agree with him.

Wake up! Freedom means tolerating those things that you dislike, as well as those things that you do like.

Iain Dale has failed that test—and not for the first time.

UPDATE: for the benefit of commenter Phil Dickens, here is a brief 101 on how libertarianism applies to this case.

The central tenet of libertarianism is the non-aggression axiom: that is "you shall not initiate force or fraud against someone's life, liberty or property".

Inherent in this is a strong belief in property rights—your body is considered to be your property and, thus, so is your liberty and the property that you have justly acquired through the application of your life and liberty.

The shop that you run is your property. Anyone who tells you how your shop should be run is infringing on your property rights, thus violating the non-aggression axiom.

Blacks, gays and Etonians do not have a right to buy stuff from your shop—you do have the right to refuse to serve them. It would make you a bit of a shit, but that is, nonetheless, the case.

The disgusted community do not have the right, for instance, to show its displeasure by throwing bricks through your window. It does have the right to boycott your shop because of your unpleasant ideas; nothing says that anyone must buy from you, or give you their money, and they can refuse to buy from you and thus make your business fail.

Of course, someone might set up a rival shop, selling anything to anyone—they will not be closing off a large section of the market as the bigot is. That person might be, for instance, an Asian who also happens to work harder than the bigot; the Asian thus not only serves the whole market, but also prices his goods more cheaply—money talks and people go to his shop and realise that maybe these Asian fellows are not the demons that they've been painted as.

The Asian's shop thrives, whilst the bigot's becomes less and less frequented. Indeed, as the Asian community grows bigger and the surrounding community less fearful of the interlopers—realising that Asian people are, in fact, humans just like them—the Asian shopkeeper starts to branch out. Instead of stocking only traditional corner-shop goods, the Asian shopkeeper starts to import the exotic fruits and vegetables that he is used to in his land of origin.

The Asian community start to flock to his shop and the indigenous community start, slowly but with increasing momentum, to discover the diversity of foods out there. Instead of buying the usual carrots, potatoes and other earthy vegetables, the wider community starts being introduced to mangoes, okra, sweet pumpkin, taro and other assorted delicacies.

People also start being introduced to new ways to cook things—the concept of "curry", for instance, might become so ubiquitous that it's almost seen as something indigenous. Further people who might never have become curious about far away places are, as travel becomes cheaper (partly as a result of enterprising Asians taking holidays back to their countries of origin), able to visit these places and further appreciate the culture that the Asian shopkeeper has come from.

And so on and so forth...

At the end of all this, the community has become enriched, by trade and the interaction of human beings—not by laws handed down from on high and enforced by violence. In the meantime, of course, the bigot's shop has long gone bust, and the bitter old cunt has joined the BNP.

53 comments:

My take: either there should be a complete free for all, but this must be expressed at time of booking, or everyone gets protection, including gay couples, groups, etc.

I reckon you're right that a hotel with such a sign wouldn't get too much business in a larger town, but a lot of guest houses are older retired people, frequently being the only ones in a smaller town or village.

No competition nearby, etc.

Don't like that law is needed, but if you protect one group you have to protect all groups.

"But maybe—just maybe—businesses should not be bound by these laws either. "

You're missing the point - which is, that whatever your personal view on what other people do, race/sexuality/gender/disability should not be a variable that affects your obtaining a service on the market.

“However, I must ask why the "libertarian" right only opposes oppression when it's done by the state. When it's committed by private capital, oppression suddenly becomes a "right."

“Statism's apparently okay when it's privatised.”

Actually, yes it is (ignoring your confused use of “Statism” for the sake of argument).

If I want to discriminate against black people or junkies or white Christian old ladies on my property (which might be quite extensive, say a housing estate or several city blocks) I should be free to do so. The point is I can't compel you to come on to my property nor do I compel you to stay. If you don't like the regime on my property, go somewhere else. If I do try and compel you, call your private defence agency or shoot me yourself and take a day in an arbitration services court.

The state imposes coercively a set of rules across all the streets in an insane attempt to create a monoculture of morality (it's morality).

Libertarians say your free to impose whatever rules you want on the property and streets that you own but you can't make me come and live their.

Surely transparency is better than regulations - yet again. One blanket regulation : any terma and conditions that might restrict particular users of a service should have to be spelt out at the time of service booking and provision.

Phil, I realise that arguing with you is pointless this is really aimed at the gallery:

“Oppression” is something tyrants do to people who cannot leave their zone of influence or realistically fight back.

I cannot oppress you by choosing to deny you access to my land or sell you a service, just as you cannot oppress me by choosing not to buy my services or goods or work for me. These are entirely non aggressive acts.

@krishna 03:11am "You're missing the point - which is, that whatever your personal view on what other people do, race/sexuality/gender/disability should not be a variable that affects your obtaining a service on the market. "

I think you are. While you are free to seek goods and services, there are TWO entities involved in trade, the buyer and the seller.

The legislation concerning equal opportunities have traditionally provided exemptions for private homes. Thus if you advertised for a domestic worker for your own home, you would have the right to discriminate on any grounds, rational or not. As a minimum, that situation should enable anyone who takes in lodgers or house guests to do likewise.

And I tend to agree with our host, that the entire private sector should be free of the blight of this legislation. We have not abolished discrimination, we have just erected facades to keep it out of sight. As a result, we have destroyed any basis for trust and fellowship between individuals. Anything that is compelled, by the law, isn't worth having.

I am a libertarian who also opposes the crushing of liberties when done by private power brokers. But liberty doesn't come into this equation. This is about the offering of goods and services in a free market.

Why would a gay person want to stay at a grudging bigot's B&B who only let him in because the law made him?

As a gay man I really don't understand the problem, as long as people are perfectly clear that because of their religion or beliefs they do not allow gay couples to share a room then you are able to book elsewhere if you wish to.

"What's to stop the bigot and his mates simply kicking the Asian's teeth in and burning his shop to the ground?"

The law. Currently, the law prosecutes force and fraud.

The same would apply in a libertarian state: the non-aggression axiom states it is wrong to initiate force or fraud against someone's life, liberty or property—as such, these actions would remain illegal.

So, the bigot and his mates would be prosecuted—just as they would be now.

It is instructive to note that, whilst my illustration may be a wee bit simplistic, it has, nevertheless, happened...

All this rigmarole has inspired me to open a B&B&B (Bed & Bong & Breakfast) in Amsterdam! Gay, straight, bi, tran-whatever, couples, threesomes, Mormons, all are welcome! Breakfast is served with a choice of Continental, Full English, or Maryland Cookies.

I wonder if breeders will be allowed to join Dale's Gays For Fascism organisation, or whether they will face discrimination? (I understand that to weed-out infiltrators, some of the more extreme gangs in the States insist that a new recruit kill someone before they are allowed to join. I dread to think what initiation test would be set by an extreme gay organisation...)

Dale maintains that when private property is used in a commercial venture it somehow magically stops being private. Of course it is an entirely spurious distinction invented solely to justify state violence. Everything outside of the state is private property to the same extent that your own house is private: hotels and shops included. The (increasing) exception to this simple state/private dichotomy is when state money corrupts private companies and organisations.

He's arguing for a situation in which whoever controls the state gets to enforce its prejudices on the entire citizenry. After the apocolyptic statist 20th century it never ceases to amaze when minority groups lobby for still more state-control of all our lives.

Perhaps I just don't trust the law much. The environment people grow up in shapes their character, and judges and police officers (who draft and enforce "the law") are just people like you and me.

If discrimination is common within a given society, then isn't the law itself is at risk? After all, historically this has happened time after time.

Make the ground rules of society very clear: equality before the law. It is from that basis that you can begin withdrawing the elements of the state that shouldn't be interfering in the private sphere. However, if you start with an unequal law, when you remove the state you will find you've still got an unequal law.

Thanks for the update, although the issue I had was never comprehension. I don't doubt that such a situation would work that way ... now.

My point was that the changing of attitude on this has nothing to do with the market (or with government legislation, before anybody else bleats) but with a long, hard battle to raise peoples' consciousness.

In the past, such a scenario would not have occurred. Indeed, it didn't, as we saw in the civil rights movement. People had to stage things like the sit-ins.

They were non-violent, didn't violate anybody's life or liberty ... but they were acts of trespass upon private property.

I'm okay with that, as violating property rights has been as integral to winning freedom as defying the state has. But most people here would support those racist business owners' "right" to get a private security force to take over the role of the police and force people out.

Which returns me to my point about absolute private property rights being analogous (emphasis for the benefit the literalists linking to dictionaries) to autocratic statism. It would be wrong for the state to do that, so why is it okay for the proprietor?

"But most people here would support those racist business owners' "right" to get a private security force to take over the role of the police and force people out."

You presume alot.

Who has a "right" to protest in that way? It is little better than the bullying of the State today.

If you disagree, boycott, but to invade someone's home is just replacing the Tyranny of the property owner over their own possessions to the tyranny of the mob over something that does not belong to them.

Just because sit-ins worked does not make them right and does not make them the only available option.

And the bus boycott worked because although they had to sit at the back blacks were allowed to get on the buses. How, exactly, do you boycott something you're not allowed to partake in?

I'm afraid that you just do not understand any of this Phil.

The reason why 'blacks' invaded the property of others (lunch counters) to have milkshakes poured over their heads and the shit beaten out of them is because they had no property rights. They were not allowed to own businesses where the scenario outlined in the update could come to pass. If they had equal property rights, then they would have been running their own businesses, and the custom of the 'blacks' would have been something to fight for. The state denied them property rights thus creating a racial business monopoly, with the explicit approval and cooperation of the tax paying citizens and businesses the protestors were invading. These 'black businesses' would be very popular with the majority black population, crowding out the 'white' owned businesses; a very real threat to the established order. They would probably, as in the scenario, be popular with the young 'white' people, which during the era of state enforced segregation, would have been seen as a threat of an altogether different order.

All of this is about property rights. I imagine that you and the other trollish commenters who come up with convoluted reasons why people should not be 'allowed' to run their businesses as they see fit is that you have not read 'The Book', and by that, I mean Rothbard's 'For a New Liberty'. If you read that book and still hold on to these irrational beliefs about pubs being different to homes, B&Bs being different to private houses, then you really are beyond our ability to make you see sense.

I'm not sure you're right when you say Phil doesn't understand "any of this." I thought his comments weren't too shabby at all. Even if you disagree with him, these aren't points you can just ignore. Nothing Phil wrote seems to demonstrate his ignorance of the issues - far from it, in fact.

You seem to be saying that the problem in the US was the state - and that if it had just given blacks equal property rights with whites then the civil rights movement (including non-violent sit-ins) would not have been necessary. This is true... but this was rather the point of the sit-ins - to force a change of the law.

I'm also not really sure the comments on here have been "trollish." They were all on-topic and polite (more or less). Seems like a healthy debate to me.

Once a booking has been taken, that B&B owner has a contract with the customers, and refusing them entry is in breach of contract.

At the very least, the B&B owner should have to make clear at the point of booking (which is often online) that s/he is a bigot and doesn't want gay people. Even in a libertarian context, the customer would have a tort against the B&B owner for breach of contract if the booking had been accepted without any deception.

Grayling, AIUI, was commenting on a case where a booking had been accepted. Is that not a distinction that DK would accept?

The civil rights movement can't be boiled down to "property rights" when, in the first instance, there was a black middle class who owned small business anyway. True, there were greater restrictions upon them than whites, but this was part of a greater issue of racism, violence, and inequality.

It's not that I don't "understand," it's that I don't accept your dogma. I've read For a New Liberty, and even he acknowledges that property relations as they exist today are illegitimate, being mandated and upheld by the state. In his words, "it is surely odd to find a group eternally suspicious of virtually any and all functions of government suddenly leaving it to government to define and apply the precious concept of property, the base and groundwork of the entire social order."

Before you take the work of anyone as gospel, I suggest you read it first. Too many people get Rothbard entirely wrong, and I say that as somebody who has looked in-depth at the vast holes in his "anarcho"-capitalist arguments.

Somehow I doubt many of you would be bleating about the right to discriminate on the basis of race, sexuality or religion if you faced any real risk of that discrimination yourself. So if we repealed all anti-discrimination legislation then the market would just compensate and bigots and nutters would be driven out of business? Any actual examples of this happening or is this just a utopian leap of faith? Or perhaps you are completely indifferent to bigots and nutters thriving and couldn't care less if racial minorities are inconvenienced and are much less able to participate in civil society? Again, I doubt you would be so sanguine about this possibility if there were a significant risk that you'd be on the receiving end.

DK - Where did you get the idea that Stephen wants to discriminate against minorities?Surely his use of the words 'bigots and nutters' in his comment would indicate otherwise?

And the market... what is that, other than the result of individual decisions and actions?

I, too, wonder whether the market/people would be enough to stop reversion to something like the previous 'No blacks' situation. The fact that discrimination resulted in commercial failure in the one case you cite is hardly proof.

And to make it quite clear, I have no wish to discriminate or to see any discrimination against any minorities.

"DK - Where did you get the idea that Stephen wants to discriminate against minorities?"

If Stephen believes that it is only the law that stops people discriminating against minorities, then I can only conclude that he fears that, without the tender ministrations of the law, he himself would slide into bigotry.

I concede that it is possible that he thinks that—though he would remain tolerant—everybody else would slide into bigotry, but that seems to me to be a somewhat dim view of humanity...

... that is probably fuelled by his own secret fear and hatred of minorities.

There are two shops in town. They both have a sign in the window that says "no Libertarians". There aren't enough customers to justify a third shop. Business is booming for the shops (Libertarians are, you must admit, a small minority). The healthy competition between the shops means that both already offer a good service at low prices. What do you do? I'm guessing you'd move?

Right-wing libertarians often support exactly the kind of authoritarian power structures within private property that they (rightly) decry in the state.

I make no apologies for calling this private statism. It is statism precisely because it's anaogous to the political state.

If you can't argue the actual point (i.e. that right-libertarianism isn't libertarian at all but simply privatises authoritarianism), fair enough. But at least be honest about it rather than using semantics to try and avoid the fact.

It's one of the issues that divides me from your perspective; I don't accept that the established propery paradigm was established in a manner that's acceptable, I support the idea behind property as a principle, but not as its currently established.

Proprietarian Libertarians are primarily concerned with the initiation of force or fraud against person or property. This is what constitutes authoritarianism, not "power structures".

Phil has consistently been dishonest in his postings here - both in his misuse of the word statism, his initial insistence that he was using it literally (followed by weaseling when it was pointed out that he wasn't) and in his characterisation of property as being defined by the state, even mischaracterising Rothbard as sharing that definition by out-of-context quotation.

Further, if one accepts that class and race are both purely social constructs with no objective existence, his advocacy of class war makes him directly equivalent to a racist. For this, and his advocacy of authoritarianism towards anyone who doesn't share his views, I make no apologies for calling him a fascist.

3) I believe there must be a state or similar coercive force in order to maintain property rights, yes. That's part of my opposition to them.

4) The state, or private bodies performing equivalent functions.

MatGB is part right. I was using the Rothbardian argument that property, as presently established, is illegitimate. I do agree with that premise.

I wouldn't follow that with a support for property in principle, being an anarcho-syndicalist. However, as we're talking about the reality of the present rather than some hypothetical other system, that's not at issue here.